Robot Blues Read online

  “It’s a very important holiday on my planet,” Raoul continued solemnly. “One that is fraught with religious significance—”

  Xris glanced sideways at the Adonian. “It’s a carnival! A week of brawling, carousing, and drunken orgies.”

  “As I said”—Raoul was grave—”it is fraught with religious significance. I was unable to attend last year and my spiritual outlook on life was considerably diminished as a result. I would very much like to attend this year and renew myself. The Little One will, of course, accompany me.”

  The cyborg knew better than to pursue the subject of Adonian spiritual outlook. People made adult vids out of those. Xris eyed the Little One, who was nodding the fedora. “What does he do during the riots?”

  “We do not riot,” Raoul said, dignity affronted. “The Little One finds the experience cerebrally stimulating.”

  Xris grunted. “I’ll bet he does.”

  “May we therefore request a leave of absence?” Raoul asked.

  “You can request it.” Xris said in the tone which meant No way in hell.

  He marched on in silence. Raoul sighed. The Little One fell over his raincoat.

  Xris could almost hear the words I told you so ripple through the air.

  At the top of the third flight of stairs, they entered an outer office. An efficient and attractive female receptionist, whose choice of eye shadow and nail polish received Raoul’s mark of approval, told them that they were expected and the professor would be with them shortly. She had barely finished speaking when a door in the back of the office opened.

  “Ah, here’s the professor now,” said the receptionist.

  “Dr. Sakuta.” Xris extended his hand—his right hand, flesh and blood and needing no adjustments as to temperature. “These are my colleagues, Raoul de Beausoleil—”

  Raoul offered the fingertips of his hand. “Charmed,” he said, and meant it. Dr. Sakuta was a very good-looking man.

  “And this is the Little One,” Xris added. “I spoke to you about him.”

  “Your telepath.” Sakuta nodded.

  “I trust that’s still all right with you,” Xris said. “Nothing personal, just a routine precaution.”

  Sakuta gazed at the Little One with an abstracted air. The professor blinked, looked up. “Oh, yes, certainly. Fine with me. I quite understand. In your line of work, you must be careful. If you’ll just step into my office? Forgive the mess. They’re renovating this part of the building.”

  Entering his office, Sakuta offered the one visible chair in the room to Xris. The professor whisked a drop cloth off another chair, which he gave to Raoul. Sakuta glanced uncertainly at the Little One; obviously no chair was suitable for the small empath, who came only to Xris’s waist. The Little One took his accustomed place beside Raoul, plopped down on the floor, and made himself comfortable.

  “Is he all right like that?” Sakuta asked in a low voice.

  “He’s fine,” said Raoul, melting. “Just perfectly fine. Thank you so much for caring.”

  Sakuta shrugged and walked around another piece of cloth-protected furniture to reach the chair behind his desk. The room smelled strongly of paint. Half the walls were a different color from the other half. A jet-powered ladder stood on the floor, airbrushes gathered around it. The painters were nowhere to be seen. Perhaps the professor had told them to take the day off.

  Sakuta sat down at the desk, then—blinking again— he stared at the open door. “Oh, dear,” he said, and started to stand up. “This is very confidential.”

  “I’ll get it, Doctor,” Xris offered. Rising, he shut the door, returned to his seat.

  “Thank you.” Sakuta gave them an apologetic smile. “All this turmoil”—he made a vague gesture to the walls—”it’s been a considerable strain. So difficult pursuing one’s work. The constant distractions . . .” He blinked at them again, gave a deprecating laugh. “It’s silly of me to complain, I know. Having one’s office remodeled isn’t exactly a catastrophic event. But my life revolves around my work.”

  In his forties, good-looking, with his dark eyes, Van Dyke beard, trimmed mustache, and luxuriant black hair, Sakuta looked as if he would be more at home among the rich and famous in the gambling casinos of Laskar. Instead, he was just another goofy, absent-minded prof.

  “I can imagine how much it must upset you,” Xris lied sympathetically.

  “So can I,” Raoul said, and sighed deeply. “Your work must be fascinating. And your rockets,” he added in a breathless tone, “they must be so big!”

  “Cut it out,” Xris muttered, and gave the Adonian a surreptitious kick in the shin. Aloud he said, “We don’t want to take up your valuable time, Professor. If you could just explain the nature of the work you want to hire us to do—”

  “Oh, yes, certainly.” Sakuta sat forward in his chair, regarded Xris with bright enthusiasm. “What do you know about space-age archaeology?”

  “Enough to pass the final.”

  Sakuta appeared shocked at this response.

  Xris grinned. “It’s a joke, Professor. Archaeology wasn’t my field. Sorry.”

  Sakuta’s expression cleared. “Ah, yes. I understand. My nemesis was economics. At any rate, on the planet of Pandor, which you will find located in the Zeta Three quadrant, some construction workers have made a historic archaeological find. They have uncovered the wreckage of a prehyperdrive spaceplane.”

  “I don’t remember much from my archaeology class,” Xris said, “but I do seem to recall that prehyperdrive craft aren’t that rare.”

  “You’re quite right.” Sakuta seemed genuinely pleased with Xris’s answer. Xris had the feeling he’d earned an A for the day. “The spaceplane itself is not of interest. We have several on display already. It is what’s inside the spaceplane that is of inestimable value.”

  He had dropped his voice; his eyes were moist. His hands actually shook with excitement.

  “What is it?” Xris asked, envisioning nothing less than a chest of jewels or maybe—considering Sakuta’s interests—a case of antique microchips.

  “A robot,” Sakuta said, his voice soft with reverent awe. “Not just any robot,” he added hastily, seeing that Xris was underwhelmed. “This is one of the first robots designed by scientists to undertake space flight. On its own.” Sakuta looked from Xris to Raoul, apparently expecting them to leap out of their chairs and go bounding about the room. “Surely you understand the significance?”

  “Oh, I do!” Raoul breathed, half rising. “I truly do.” He licked his lips.

  “Look, whether we understand it or not doesn’t really matter, does it, Professor?” Xris said, shoving Raoul back into his chair. “I don’t suppose you want to hire us to write a research paper on it.”

  “No, sir.” Sakuta looked slightly abashed. “You’re absolutely right. You have your areas of specialization and I have my own. It’s just that this discovery . . . well, never mind. No, the reason I am hiring you is to recover this robot.”

  Xris leaned back, automatically reached for a twist, saw Raoul raise a disapproving eyebrow, and desisted. Clasping his hands together, elbows resting on Ihe arm of the chair, he regarded the professor speculatively. “What’s wrong with it?”

  Sakuta was taken aback by the question. “Why, nothing’s wrong with it... that I know of. It’s very, very old, of course, and I think we can safely assume that most of its circuitry is corroded. And it probably sustained a certain amount of damage when the plane in which it was traveling crashed into the planet, though my colleague who first reported the find stated that, in her estimation, the robot was in excellent condition, all things considered. I’m not sure I understand your question—”

  Xris was shaking his head. “Look, Professor, from all indications, it sounds like you need to hire a salvage team, not Mag Force 7. We’re a crack commando outfit. I have the best men and women in the business on my team and you’ll pay the highest rates in the business for us. And if all you want us to do is dig out s
ome moldy old hunk of scrap metal—”

  “Ah, I see. I wish it were that easy.” Sakuta smiled briefly; his smile faded. He ran his fingertips back and forth on the desk pad, back and forth, staring down at the pad all the while.

  Xris recognized the signs. He waited patiently.

  Sakuta looked up. His face was tinged with a faint crimson. “I ... I am deeply ashamed of myself. I could never have imagined ... Ethical considerations aside, I ...” He lapsed into silence.

  Suddenly he clenched his fist. “But, damn it, this is too important!”

  Sakuta shut his eyes when he spoke, as if he feared to see the condemnation of his visitors’ faces. “I’m committing a terrible act. I know that, but I can’t help myself. Gentlemen, I am hiring you to steal this robot.”

  Chapter 4

  Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.

  G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday

  Sakuta sat, sweating, shaken.

  He might have been asking us to assassinate the prime minister, Xris thought, amused. Raoul had leaped to his feet and was solicitously pouring the professor a glass of water from a carafe on the desk.

  “Thank you,” said Sakuta faintly.

  “My pleasure.” Raoul was about to rest a comforting hand on the professor’s broad shoulder, except that Xris growled. With a jerk of his head, he ordered the Ado-nian back to his chair.

  Sighing deeply, Raoul obeyed, patting Sakuta’s hand tenderly as he left.

  The professor never noticed. He gulped the water, wiped his lips fastidiously on a white handkerchief, which he then returned to his breast pocket.

  “Who is in possession of the robot?” Xris asked.

  “No one, at the moment. It is still inside the wreckage of the plane, where it was discovered. The Pandoran government officials have taken into their empty heads to fear that the ship is contaminated—some sort of ancient virus or bacteria that may infect and kill everyone on the planet. They are, of course, completely wrong. Any expert would tell them so. Several have. The plane crashed in a desert environment. My colleague has inspected the spaceplane thoroughly and reported finding only trace amounts of radiation and no bacteria or germs of any kind, ancient or otherwise. The Pandoran government refuses to listen. And, I must admit, we haven’t gone out of our way to convince them. Their irrational fear is buying us time.”

  Xris shifted in his chair. “Professor, I don’t mind bending the law on occasion—”

  He was forced to wait to continue until Raoul recovered from a fit of coughing.

  “—but galactic salvage law clearly states that any debris which falls from space becomes the property of the planet on which it falls. If the Pandorans want this robot for their own Space and Areonautics Museum, then—”

  “That’s just it!” Sakuta cried in a hollow voice. “If they wanted it for a museum, that would be fine with us! We could arrange to have it exhibited here on loan. But they don’t. They are terribly afraid of it. They intend to destroy it.” Xris frowned. “Legal action, then.” Sakuta was shaking his head. “We are in a quandary, gentlemen. We could go to the galactic court and ask for an injunction to stop the Pandorans from destroying the robot, but that would take weeks of legal maneuvering and we don’t have weeks!

  “The robot and its spaceplane were discovered during the excavation of a construction site. The Pandorans are far more interested in proceeding with their construction than they are in saving the robot. They simply want to be rid of it. They have threatened to bring in bulldozers and”—he shuddered at the thought—”cranes to remove it to a safe area where it can be destroyed.”

  “Money ...”

  Sakuta was now impatient. “We’ve offered them ten times the value of the robot. They’ve refused. They keep yammering about flesh-eating viruses. I tell you, gentlemen. I have had nightmares about rough, hulking Pandoran construction workers—”

  “You, too?” Raoul was sympathetic.

  Sakuta regarded them with pleading eyes. “It wouldn’t be precisely stealing, would it? We would still honor our commitment to pay them for the robot. We are simply ensuring that we save it for posterity.”

  Xris considered. “You want to hire us to travel to Pandor, retrieve this robot—”

  “I will give you a crate that we have specially designed for it.”

  Xris resumed. “And then you want us to smuggle the robot off-planet—”

  Sakuta looked stricken. “I know that this means breaking the law. Perhaps it’s not feasible—”

  Xris waved that small consideration away. “In the interests of science.” He looked over at the Little One. “Well? Is he telling the truth? Is this on the level?”

  The telepath gazed steadily from beneath the fedora at Sakuta, then nodded.

  Raoul gave the professor a charming smile—to apologize for ever dreaming to doubt him—and turned to Xris.

  “The Little One says that Professor Sakuta is telling us the truth, Xris Cyborg. But not all the truth.”

  Sakuta frowned slightly.

  Raoul hastened to continue, anxious that Xris should understand. “Professor Sakuta greatly desires this robot, my friend, far more than he is admitting to us. The reason: His colleague considers the robot to be in working condition with its memory intact. If so, it would be the first prehyperdrive robot ever recovered capable of offering us an eyewitness account of conditions in the galaxy hundreds of years ago. Scholars galaxy-wide will be willing to pay enormous amounts for the opportunity to study the robot and its files. The museum will reap tremendous financial benefit, as well as widespread publicity. Professor Sakuta himself stands to benefit greatly and has already signed on with a publicity agent to handle his lecture tour.”

  Sakuta’s face was extremely red. The professor attempted several times to speak, gave it up, drank a glass of water, straightened his tie, and then regarded them with an air that was half ashamed, half defiant.

  “Very well. I admit it Yes, we will stand to profit by this discovery—”

  “To a considerable extent,” Xris inserted dryly.

  “But I assure you, gentlemen, that money is not a motivating factor. The significance of this discovery, from a scientific and historical perspective, is beyond measure—”

  “Except to your accountant.” Xris cut off the professor’s earnest protests. “Relax. We’ll take the job. We’ll meet and plan the operation tonight. Tomorrow I’ll let you know the estimated cost. I take it you want this handled ASAP.”

  Sakuta had regained his composure, though he still looked faintly embarrassed. “I would have you on Pan-dor this moment, if that were possible. Yes, as soon as you can make your arrangements. The ... um ... money will not be a problem. The museum is prepared to pay whatever you require.”

  Xris grunted. “I’ll bet. Still, I’ll send you an estimate, along with the contract.”

  Sakuta was alarmed. “Do we ... do we have to ... put this in writing?”

  Xris grinned. “Don’t worry. The contract’s worded quite carefully. It’s for your own protection as well as ours.”

  “Of course.” Sakuta managed a strained smile. “You are professionals. That is why I turned to you for help. I have made up a dossier which contains information on the planet, its people, the location of the robot—everything I thought might assist you.”

  He handed over a disposable electronic notebook. Xris accepted the information, stood up.

  “One more thing. Where do we deliver it?”

  “What?” Sakuta appeared genuinely confused.

  “The robot,” Xris said patiently.

  “Oh, yes! My goodness. Of course. Delivery. Um ... I don’t suppose that bringing it here would ... No, I can see that wouldn’t do.”

  Xris had been shaking his head.

  Sakuta was baffled. “I’m afraid I have no idea ... I’m so unused to this sort of thing. Have you any suggestions?”

  “Pan
dor . . .” Xris recollected. “It’s near the Void, isn’t it?”

  Sakuta nodded.

  “There’s a place known as Hell’s Outpost. I see you’ve heard of it.” Xris grinned at Sakuta’s shocked expression. “It’s not bad. A quiet place. Everyone minds his or her own business. Perfect for our transaction. Meet us there. We’ll let you know when.”

  “I’ll be there,” Sakuta promised, though he didn’t look happy.

  The professor rose, moved around from his desk. He extended his hand, shook hands with each of them, had only slight difficulty in retrieving his hand from Raoul’s affectionate grasp. He walked with them to the door of the office.

  “I’d give you a tour of the museum,” he said, “but this has left me with an upset stomach. If you wouldn’t mind ...”

  Xris assured him that, much as they would love to view the exhibits, they were on a tight schedule. They walked down the hall. The receptionist was not at her desk—rather to Xris’s disappointment. She had seemed to regard him with a certain amount of interest. Of course, he was wearing a suit that hid his cybernetic leg, his fleshfoam and plastiskin hand, and a wig that covered the scars on his bald head.

  Xris considered waiting. The Little One put an end to his hopes.

  “The Little One says she is not for you, my friend. She is interested in the professor and the feeling is mutual.” Raoul heaved a despairing sigh. “Ah, well. It never fails. The good-looking ones are always straight.”

  Xris smiled, took out a twist, thrust it into his mouth. They descended the stairs, stepped out into the exhibit area, which was now packed with groups of schoolchildren. Their shrill voices echoed, bounced off the high ceiling. Xris turned down his augmented hearing. They dodged shrieking children, harassed-looking teachers, stoic-faced museum guides, and were near the exit when the Little One suddenly grabbed hold of Xris’s right hand, pointed.

  A woman stood with her back half to them, apparently deeply involved in studying the brochure she held in her hand.